


persistence

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: BioShock Infinite
Genre: Gen, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:45:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is rather tired of watching the man die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	persistence

It began, as it always did, with blood.

The first DeWitt they brought through collapsed a scant few seconds later, haemorrhaging into unconsciousness. The man, unlike Robert, did not have the benefit of a trans-dimensional counterpart close at hand, nor did he appear to possess the ability to make sense of the strangeness that was Columbia. Seconds turned to minutes, and DeWitt’s pulse ebbed to non-existent under his fingertips.

"Not this DeWitt, then." Robert lowered the man’s wrist back to the ground. The dead, after all, were hardly much use in returning girls who’d been plucked from their home reality to their rightful places.

"But there are infinitely many more who would serve just as well," Rosalind voiced, completing his train of thought as if she was a mirror reflecting onto him.

The same, they were, but so very different. She saw the man they needed for the task as nothing more than a commodity to be plucked from a shelf, infinite iterations all ready for testing. Robert drew his thoughts away from what he thought of DeWitt. There were more pressing matters to attend to. The blood on his hands, for one, the scarlet streaking on his pocket handkerchief.

Each and every time thereafter, it began with the inevitable nosebleed. And each time, whether it was DeWitt’s head pulped against the street cobbles by a Handyman, or the inability of the man to accept the reality he’d entered into, it ended in blood. Trial after trial, Rosalind made note of the experiment’s outcome, and trial after trial, Robert disposed of the unfortunate man’s body. When there was anything left to allow that dignity.

Then the physicists began again, the wheel of blood and death turning once more. One dead DeWitt was too many, but what could they do? Naught but exert their influence upon someone who could bring about change, and for that, the body count would only rise.

Sometimes, through the unwise choices of Booker himself.

"DeWitt," Robert murmured, tugging the one hundredth and twenty-first iteration’s arm back away from the edge of the suspended city. "I’m getting awfully tired of watching you die. I would advise you _against_ jumping.”

**Author's Note:**

> Combination of two prompts, both given by [robertenraptured](http://robertenraptured.tumblr.com/):
> 
>   * "You're like a mirror reflecting on me."
>   * One day Robert is going to frown and tell Booker 'I’m awfully tired of watching you die."
> 



End file.
